In a press release on Thursday, the company said it intends to underscore its major makeover to Dunkin’, getting ready to evolve into a quick-service coffee brand that sells donuts and other bakery menu items to keep customers satisfied.

Recently, the donut giant launched its ‘Dunkin’ Summer Party’ campaign, introducing a wide selection of delectable menu items especially for this summer season.

Nobklao Trakoolpan, Managing Director of Golden Donuts (Thailand), said the company is updating its branding to Dunkin’ to convey its commitment to energising guests through great-tasting coffee and donuts, while embracing Dunkin’s heritage by retaining its familiar pink and orange colours and iconic font.

With a strategic ‘Coffee & Donuts’ campaign backed by the craze of a coffee concept store, Dunkin’ will continue to keep a significant focus on its popular donuts, but has expanded its menu with other food and beverage product lines, for instance, coffee, sandwiches, and other bakery items.

The coffee-and-donut chain remains optimistic about gaining additional popularity from both regular diners and new customers in Thailand after obtaining widespread acceptance from various other markets around the world.

Following the rebranding, Dunkin’ is poised to promote its continued ‘Menu Innovation’, a marketing strategy focused on unveiling new food and beverage innovation, where customers can enjoy a variety of favourite donuts and other mouthwatering menu items selected for special occasions.

“Aside from a successful rebranding and extension of our food and beverage product lines, we are preparing to announce greater expansion to satisfy customers’ various demands. Currently, Dunkin’ has more than 150 coffee concept stores across Thailand and is ready to introduce its new operations in shopping centres and in the form of a kiosk and a drive-through shop. We’ll continue to evolve our plans to meet the needs of our loyal customers across the country,” added Nobklao.

The company said in a press release on Thursday that the range has been successfully launched in Thailand and Taiwan and it is planning to expand to other Watsons Asian markets in the near future.

The company said its derma skincare category in Asia is experiencing 24 per cent compound sales growth since 2014. As more women are looking for effective derma skincare products, the online search for related topics grew significantly by 117 per cent compared to last year.

Urban Damage Care is developed with the mission to deliver a skincare solution to protect women with sensitive skin from the harmful environment and pollution.

Masahiko Uotani, Representative Director, President and CEO of Shiseido Group, said: “A.S. Watson is the largest health and beauty retailer in the world that acts with speed, innovation and vision making them the perfect retailer to bring Urban Damage Care to the high street.

“With A.S. Watson’s extensive distribution network and customer insight of the derma cosmetics category and Shiseido’s expertise in R&D and innovation, this has enabled us to co-create a range that supports our core values of putting the customers’ needs first while ensuring that it is accessible to customers.”

Malina Ngai, Group Chief Operating Officer of A.S. Watson Group, said: “The project concept came across during a visit that I made to Shiseido headquarter in Tokyo 18 months ago. We shared and exchanged customer insights about the increasing consumer demand for more sophisticated skin care solutions in Asia. Immediately we decided to work together on this common mission to produce exclusive range for Watsons customers.

“The project then kicked off with customer survey on a selected panel of Watsons members, combined with Shiseido’s 40 years of sensitive skin research and product development technology, we collaborated to develop the range that we believe will be best suitable for modern Asian females to improve their skin to defend against urban pollution.”

Made in Japan with global research at the heart, the program offers a range of products including makeup remover, facial cleanser, lotion, emulsion, essence and cream, which are targeted towards a variety of age groups and skin types.

All products are dermatologically tested and are designed to relieve irritation from sensitive skin. Customers receive recommendation from specially trained beauty advisors to choose the right products for the desired condition of their skin.

Last year, toxic smog blanketed Bangkok and caused high levels of air pollution which is one of the biggest threats to skin. Therefore, when the range offering the perfect solution to relieve customers from the harmful skin effects launched in Thailand in June 2018, it was sold out immediately. Following the positive feedbacks from the customers, d program will be launched in China on 11 April.

Derma skincare products are formulated to restore skin health, combining dermatology and skincare technology, and most derma skin brands available in Asia come from France and US.

Inspired by the trend of increasing number of Japanese brands developing high quality skin care products, A.S. Watson Group identifies the opportunity to serve customers and co-create with leading Japanese beauty expert Shiseido Group to introduce d program Urban Damage Care in Asia markets.

This is Yoshimoto Kogyo’s first investment in overseas media, the company said in a press release on Thursday, and it hopes that this will accelerate development for future projects in Asia.

The two companies also announced the formation of an exclusive joint-venture out of Singapore to showcase Yoshimoto Group’s most popular content across iflix’s territories in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, and the corresponding distribution of iflix’s content in Japan.

The joint venture will also produce localised versions of proven content formats out of Japan, to significantly expand iflix’s original content offering.

The content to be provided to iflix will be popular Japanese programs that will be localised for Asian countries(animation, drama, movies, variety, and comedy, etc.), and in the future, it hopes to develop all-Japan original content including programs and films for an Asian market.

As an industry leader in localisation with unsurpassed subtitling and dubbing expertise and resources, iflix will diminish any language barriers to popular Yoshimoto programming, including anime, dramas, movies, variety and comedy-themed shows for audiences in Southeast Asia.

The joint venture underscores iflix’s growing focus on developing and creating highly-engaging hyper-local programming specifically for Millennial and Gen Z generations, the majority of which come from emerging and developing markets in Southeast Asia, and Yoshimoto Kogyo’s mandate to promote the export of Japanese content and formats to younger international audiences.

Yoshimoto Kogyo has been actively promoting Asian development for the last few years. In 2014, the company established MCIP Holdings in Indonesia as its base of Asian strategy and began the “Living in Asia Comedians” program. This program has Yoshimoto comedians living and working in 7 different countries in Asia. On April of 2018, it announced the establishment of the “Okinawa Asia Entertainment Platform,” an integrated national platform for distributing various types of content on the Internet.

Hideaki Shimizu, Vice President of Yoshimoto Kogyo, said: “This time investing in significant media in Asia will be a big step for Yoshimoto Kogyo’s Asian strategy.”

Mark Britt, iflix Co-Founder and Group CEO, added: “We have an incredible opportunity to deliver a uniquely localised product for iflix audiences based on proven Japanese comedy formats with mass appeal through this joint venture. Yoshimoto Kogyo has set the standard for popular, culture-defining millennial comedy content. We are thrilled to collaborate with them to experiment, explore and create new content to cater to a mobile-savvy, discerning global iflix audience.”

“Asia Pacific continues to present immense growth for Marriott International. A few weeks ago, we announced our 2020 vision, aiming for 1,000 properties in operation by the end of 2020. This is set to increase our current operating portfolio by nearly 40 per cent, with an estimated 40 per cent more job opportunities added in the region,” he said.

Menon said that Marriott International currently operates over 710 properties in 23 countries and territories, with 23 of the 30 global brands in Asia Pacific. This year, we will add close to 100 new hotels or nearly 20,000 rooms when several brands debut in Australia, Hong Kong, The Philippines, Nepal and India

“Travel and tourism continue to grow in the region. Global traffic will double in the next 20 years and Asia-Pacific is set to be the biggest growth engine with almost four billion passenger journeys expected from the region by 2037, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA). The middle class is growing globally and hundreds of millions of people want to start their first trip,” he said.

Menon said that Thailand is one of the most popular destinations in Asia Pacific and will continue to remain so. International arrivals have been increasing and 2018 saw a record number of 38.27 million international arrivals, according to the Tourism Ministry of Thailand.

In Thailand, Marriott International has a presence of 44 hotels and resorts with more than 12,000 rooms, while more than 20 new properties have been planned.

“We target to open five new properties in Thailand in 2020 in Pattaya, Khao Lak, Phuket and Bangkok. We are positive about Thailand tourism going forward, and this is underscored with our growth vision where our footprint is set to increase by 50 per cent,” he said.

Model operator

“Thailand is viewed by Marriott International as one of the model tourism operators. The government has worked hard to establish tourism and the associated infrastructure.

“Thailand has an excellent balance between the business sector and the leisure component of our industry,” said Menon.

“With our increasing footprint in Thailand, we see the opportunity to continue growing and developing local talent to look after our guests. Our team has been working with hotel schools and other partners to identify local talent to ensure that we will have the best leaders for the future. Today, some of our general managers are |Thais, both male and female, ” |he added.

Menon said that China continues to be the strongest growth driver for Marriott International in Asia Pacific, it is Marriott International’s top source market in Asia Pacific and growing across the world.

“With the growing number of Chinese travellers, we see this as an opportunity and are focused on the needs and preferences of the Chinese consumer; and our joint venture with Alibaba underscores this vision. For example, in April 2018, we rolled out the Post Post Pay (PPP) functionality across more than 1,000 Marriott International hotels globally on Fliggy, Alibaba’s travel service platform. PPP allows qualified users to travel first and pay after their stay. Several hotels in Thailand now offer this service to cater to the way Chinese travellers book, stay and pay,” he said.

Menon said that whilst North America remains Marriott International’s biggest market, Asia Pacific is a big driver of growth and represents a tremendous opportunity.

China continues to be the strongest growth driver for Marriott International in Asia Pacific, with more than 300 hotels in the pipeline. This accounts for more than 50 per cent of the company’s planned properties in Asia Pacific.

“For any country around the world, including Thailand, we welcome governments that promote the travel and tourism industry as a whole. As a hospitality company, we are in the business of providing quality accommodation and experiences, and we believe that travel enriches lives and expands horizons.” said Menon.